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How I Discovered Intention Tapping

By Steve Wells

Translations: French  German

Around Christmas 2014 I discovered an incredibly simple yet surprisingly powerful process I now call Intention-based Energy Process (IEP), or simply Intention Tapping.

I still pinch myself sometimes that something so simple can so quickly and effectively shift negative states and restore both me and my clients to a place of clarity and calm.

IEP combines tapping with specific definite intentions that act as commands to your unconscious mind to release the emotional attachments behind your problems and restore your body energy back to flow.

After using IEP, you usually discover not only that you feel better, you also have greater clarity to make decisions, and can more easily access the personal power to achieve your goals. In this way, IEP can be a powerful tool for peak performance as well as for emotional healing.

  • Emotional Attachments are the Problem
  • Disturbance in the Flow
  • Release the attachments (resistance) and restore flow
  • How does IEP Work?
  • So how do you do this?
  • Let’s consider each of these in turn
Emotional Attachments are the Problem

When you have a problem, it is typically because you have developed (or created) an emotional attachment to something.

For example, let’s say you don’t like speaking in public, which is very common. You quite likely learned to link fear to public speaking in the past via specific negative experiences where you learned that public presentations are a threat to your safety and lead to rejection, such as being laughed at when you read aloud to the class as a child and stumbled over the words. Now as an adult even thinking about speaking in public triggers that emotional reaction, the painful feelings of fear and rejection seem to be “attached” to public speaking and even thoughts about this.

Your mind creates these emotional attachments to keep you safe. Since you suffered before, your unconscious mind stores this situation as a threat, and is constantly alert to anything similar which might also lead to such dire consequences. The possibility of a public speaking event as an adult then triggers the original stress reaction and even gives you a shot of that feeling as a reminder that this is not going to be good!

However, it’s not your thoughts about public speaking that are the cause of your suffering, it is the emotional attachments to those thoughts which are the real culprit (Thanks Byron Katie).

When you release the negative emotional attachments, you can think about speaking and even go into speaking situations without the same fearful reactions. This is one of the wonderful things tapping can help you to do, and now IEP too.

Disturbance in the Flow

When we are triggered emotionally, one of the consequences is usually a bodily disturbance, or a disturbance in the flow of our body energy. We feel it in our body somehow, perhaps as a heaviness, a tightness, or as “butterflies”.

This disturbance in flow, or what could be called an “inner resistance”, is usually the most uncomfortable part of our problem, and it is also something that tapping and IEP can help us to shift.

Release the attachments (resistance) and restore flow

IEP can enable you to release emotional attachments and restore your body energy to flow often quite rapidly. And even when you are working on problems that have many different parts, using IEP can often allow you to move through these different aspects of the problem quite efficiently, in my experience much more rapidly than when using tapping along.

How does IEP Work?

There are two specific intention statements which form the foundation of IEP:

I release all my emotional attachments to X (X = problem, image, memory, thought, belief, event, situation, person…)

I restore the right energy flow to Y (Y = body area)

IEP can be used to release emotional attachments to past traumas and hurts as well as to future fantasies and projections (which is a big one for many of us, projecting failure and gloom and doom).

The result of releasing these negative attachments is more energy and availability to be present in your life.

In using IEP we typically work through a 3-stage process to:

  1. Release your emotional attachments to negative beliefs, past hurts, and unhealthy and destructive behaviour patterns
  2. Restore your energy to flow, bringing emotional balance and clarity. In this stage you reconnect with inner resources of confidence and personal power
  3. Reset your goals and intentions to create new positive futures, make new behavioural choices, and take empowered action.

The energy intentions in IEP can be used with or without tapping, however when they are combined with tapping it tends to allow the feelings in the body to harmonise more effectively.

So how do you do this?

Let’s say you do have a fear of public speaking and you notice yourself feeling anxious when you think about a speech you have to give next week. In using IEP you can start very indirectly and generally without needing to be specific by saying or thinking:

“I release all my emotional attachments to public speaking”.

Do this while tapping continually, and then simply wait and notice what happens.

Typically the next thing that will arise is either a thought about the specific concerns you have about speaking in public (such as saying it wrong), or perhaps you will notice the feelings in your body (such as a tightness in your chest) that are triggered by this thought, or perhaps you may even have a memory about a past speaking failure. In this way IEP naturally moves from general to specific.

Let’s consider each of these in turn

If you had the thought that you might forget what to say and you have an image of that in your mind, you could form this intention:

“I release all my emotional attachments to saying it wrong (or this image of me saying it wrong)”.

Then, as before, simply wait and notice what happens next, and continue the process on the next aspect, and so on.

If you noticed that when you think about your speech you have a tightness in your chest, you could form this intention:

“I restore the right energy flow to my chest”.

Then simply wait and notice what happens next.

If the feeling moves to a different place then apply the same statement with the new body location as the target.

If a thought or image or memory comes up then apply the first releasing intention to that, and follow where it leads next, continuing the process on each new aspect that arises until you have relief.

More...

If you notice that a memory of past failure comes up, say for example when you were reading to class as a child, apply the releasing intention to that memory, for example:

“I release all my emotional attachments to this memory of being laughed at when I read out the wrong words”.

Now simply wait and notice what happens next, and continue the IEP process on all the different aspects (thoughts, feelings, memories, sensations, and so on) that arise.

If you wish, you might work through all the different parts of this event, and any related negative events, applying the IEP statements and tapping on each of the emotionally intense moments and (most importantly) the emotional attachment (meaning / belief) you formed at that time.

Whatever comes up for you, keep using IEP and tapping on all the different aspects that arise until you can think about speaking in public without the same negative reactions being triggered.

There are many more distinctions for using IEP for best results, however even with the basic introduction I’ve given you here you will very likely be able to get surprising results in using it.

To help you to understand this more, on my website there are a number of recordings from webinars where I have used IEP and demonstrated it with volunteers.


Intention Tapping was developed by Steve Wells

Steve Wells is an international leadership coach and peak performance consultant based in Perth, Western Australia. Steve has helped thousands of people worldwide to overcome inner barriers to success, live their values and achieve their positive life goals. He regularly teaches and consults worldwide with elite athletes and corporate personnel to improve their performance and enhance the performance of their teams. He also conducts personal development seminars and professional training workshops internationally.


Together with Dr. David Lake he developed Simple Energy Techniques (SET) and the unique advanced approach Provocative Energy Techniques (PET). He also recently developed Intention-based Energy Process (IEP) also known as Intention Tapping. Steve is the author of 100% YES! and co-author of 5 other books. He teaches practical strategies you can use immediately to get better results.

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trading as Intention Tapping International

Phone: +61 (0)8 9271 9271

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